Micheal McCormack and Neil Smith at the 2022
Remembrance Day Ceremony
On Saturday, November 11, the Junee RSL Sub-Branch will be commemorating Remembrance Day at the Junee Cenotaph, asking for people to assemble at 10:30am for a 10:45am start.
There will be covered seating on Broadway itself (on the Athenium side of the road) for veterans, their families, and general members of the public. Veterans, Peacekeepers and Serving Personnel are encouraged to wear medals. Immediate family members may wear deceased veteran’s medals on the right breast. Recipients of Australian Honours are also welcome to wear official insignia. Maurie Goldstraw, Vice President of the Junee RSL Sub-Branch welcomes all the community to the service.
“I’ll be running the show in the absence of Greg. What will happen is I will give a talk and then we’ll hand over to Darren McDivitt from the Royal Australian Navy as our keynote speaker. Then Michael McCormack will say a few words and we’ll go through the normal procedure of prayers and the last post.
“We’ll be inviting all the veterans and their families down for light refreshments in the Aurora room at the Ex-Services Club. The whole procedure would probably only take about 35 minutes but we have a couple of special things we’ll be doing. “We’ll have a poppy break where we’ll be laying poppies down the steps to the flagpole, we’ll have a mounted rifleman and his uniform up on the top which will add a bit of spark to the procedure.”
Maurie said it will be a simple but significant event. On the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, a minute’s silence is observed and dedicated to those soldiers who died fighting coinciding with 11am on 11 November 1918, when the guns on the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare. The Germans called for an armistice (suspension offighting) in order to secure a peace settlement. They accepted the allied terms of unconditional surrender.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month attained a special significance in the post war years. It be came universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war. Originally known as Armistice Day, it was renamed Remembrance Day after World War Two to commemorate those who were killed in both World Wars.
Maurie said, “Every year the service gets a lot bigger and better and we do involve the people of Junee and other services like Vietnam veterans and legacy. We got to talk a bit more about Vietnam veterans and what it means to the people who’ve lost loved ones.
“It’s a day to remember the lives of the people who perished and gave the supreme sacrifice.” Maurie said the RSL Sub- branch wanted to give a focus to Vietnam veterans and their families for this Remembrance Day service.
We will remember them
